Ayacucho also happens to be the place to be for Easter in Peru. They have some of the most dramatic/beautiful processions and wildest parties you’ll find. The weekend is this strange mix of religiosity and debauchery. I’ve honestly never seen so many people in line for confession, but I’ve also never seen so many people drunk on the night before Easter. There are 33 churches in the city of Ayacucho. It’s a lot of churches for a pretty small town and they are all really old. It has one of the oldest churches in South America, built in the 1540’s. The Catherdral, built in the 1600’s – is amazing. It has all these altars to different saints that are made out of cedar, but covered in gold leaf and they are huge and intricate.
The main weekend activities are a procession at night on Good Friday, a full on party on Holy Saturday, and another procession on Easter morning.
Good Friday there is a procession of el Senor del Santo Sepulcro– he’s lying in a clear coffin of sorts and it’s representing that he’s dead. Prior to the procession, the churches give out candles to anyone that wants one and then at about 8pm they turn off all the lights in the Plaza de Armas and people light there candles. It’s beautiful. Then the procession starts from on of the churches and there are all these men dressed in black carrying the Christ figure. He stops at every corner, they say a prayer, sing a song and then keep going around, shortly after the Virgin Mary is lead out by a group of women all dressed in black and a similar process occurs. It’s just really beautiful and has a very appropriate somber tone to the evening.
Saturday is a whole different story. It’s basically a full on party. We spent our day visiting the beautiful valley of Huanta and eating Pachamanca, but my friend stayed in Ayacucho to participate in the running of the bulls or Jalatoro as they like to call it.
The evening is one huge street party, with bands on all four corners, people dancing and drinking and mostly getting drunk. Then around 10 – 11pm they set of fireworks…like 4th of July fireworks and these “castillos” are built which are set off throughout the night and in the early morning. It’s definitely got a different feel from any Saturday night before Easter in the US.
Easter morning is the highlight of the whole weekend. Mass starts at 4am and it is followed by the procession of the resurrected Christ. It’s this immense “Anda” completely made of wax candles and carried by 500 locals. It was raining pretty bad, but it was still amazing to see…as they walk the men all cheer “No Pesa Nada” and I couldn’t help getting a little teary eyed.
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